Parenting has gradually evolved as a very important subject of study, considering the fact that the offspring is greatly impacted by not only the physical treatment but also the psychological handling by parents and may adversely impact the entire life of a child if not treated properly.
Arne Thompson’s “Cinderella” is a great folktale and is really loved by the audience, specially children, though the story seems to create more of a fairy tale effect, there is a very deep message embedded in the entire plot, and that is about the treatment given to step-children; the story does not produce any criticism towards it, but the incidents are good enough to draw the audience towards a sympathetic outlook about Cinderella and come with a perception that “It is not possible for step children to enjoy a fair treatment by step-mother or step-father and they are always ill-treated in our society, are subject to domestic violence and mental torturei”.
The story of Cinderella may be an old one, but the problem that was highlighted in the story still prevails and we will further analyze the different aspects related to the ill-treatment of step children at the hands of step parents, it is important to make this study a fair analysis and infer whether the message drawn from Cinderella holds true or not, in reality.
Step parental Care is not something new and has a very long history, however it is a general perception that the affection and care received by genetic offspring is mostly unavailable to step children. The above has thus created the hypothesis, which talks about the exploitation in step-relationships and this is the area of study is explored and is referred as “Cinderella Effect”. [ CITATION Dal06 \l 1033 ]
It is also asked at times if there is over-representation of child abuse in step-families, however this will be out-of-scope for the current study and the primary focus will be on the analysis of step-relationships.
- Theoretical Framework
- Child Deaths
The data shows significant number of instances where fatal battering has taken place impacting step children and specially the ones under the age of 10 years, the data from Canada, United States and Australia proves this, the data is basically taken from the incidents where the children are beaten to death by their step fathers; it is not that the genetic fathers are not indulged in such incidents, but the facts show that the risk of step-fathers being the reason of such activity is twice more than that of the genetic fathers.[ CITATION Dal06 \l 1033 ]
- Nonlethal Abuse
Once again we have to go with the data that provides us the information on non-lethal abuse by step-parents and this time the data is much higher and suggests that physical assaults and sexual abuse is very abundant. The data comes from two sources over here, one is the number of incidents reported and the other is the survey response from individuals who live or have lived with step-parents.
- Cause and Effect Analysisii
